First of the Trials and Tribulations.

Quick recap:

In 2019 I met my now wife. In 2020 we were married. Also, in 2020 I was laid-off and becoming depressed. We decided to move to the Philippines to be with family and to start a new life together. My wife was sin Singapore working, and I was figuring out the logistics of coming here.

With everything that was going on in the world during this crazy year I will say traveling was a challenge. I was able to find tickets for me and my wife that we would arrive at the airport about 30 mins apart. Again, I was coming from Ohio and my wife, from Singapore. Then the travel bans started. By the end of all of this my flight was cancelled 3 times and my wife's was cancelled 6 times.

I was very fortunate that I had purchased my ticket with Orbitz. I had to spend a lot of time on the phone with them, the airlines, and different bureaus of the Philippine government. Most of the my time spent on the phone was trying to find out when flights would be allowed, make sure I could still travel here, and if there was going to be any special requirements. A lot of the confusion was simply due to everyone trying to figure out how to stop the pandemic, and new information coming out almost daily, with some of it conflicting with previous information. This was a new virus and a new situation the world found itself in.

The phone calls to Orbitz and the airlines was mostly just to reschedule flights. Now I purchased the original tickets in March and were were set to arriver here in July. My first flight was cancelled in April. Over the next two months I spent most of my time on hold, waiting for the next available operator. I will say that my flight was easier to arrange than my wife's flight. My flight ended up costing me quiet a bit more in the end because it was more than one reschedule and I had to pay the difference.

My wife's flight was more difficult. The flights from Singapore kept getting cancelled. I was able to receive one refund on one of her tickets to date but the rest I have chalked up as a loss. Now, I don't mean to imply that I lost 6 tickets because I was able to reschedule any of the flights that they cancelled but I was out the cost of 3 tickets. Two of them being due to waiting on refunds that have never came.

I did spend a lot of time on the phone and sending emails with the Philippines. Most of the responses I received were nothing more than you need to contact bureau "A" Naturally I would call and e-mail "A" only to be told that, "Sorry sir, that is a question for "B". I would contact "B" only to be referred to "C", only to be told that only "A" can help me. This was very frustrating, but I chalked it up to rule changes, travel bans, and no one really knowing. I finally was given an answer that as long as I had my marriage certificate and my wife would be arriving close to when I was, then there would be no problems.

So, now its June my flight is set to arrive in Cebu the last week of July with my wife arriving about an hour ahead of me. At this point I have sent all of my non-essentials over, and gave away, sold, or trashed any thing else that I wasn't taking with me. I had my passport, important documents, including some of the printed out e-mails saying I was good to go. I had already made a few short trips to say my goodbyes to friends and family. I calling up those who I could not visit and used social media to contact the rest. I also let them know that I would be closing my social media after my dad and his family arrive.

I wanted to get rid of social media to simplify my life. We were starting over I was getting rid of all the drama in my life I possibly could. I knew we wouldn't have internet readily available, at least not right away. I took this as a chance to unplug, live a simple life, and begin to truly live again. I say this because I very rough time before I met my wife even at on point living in my car. Then I got the manufacturing job and everything started to look up. My life was getting in order again, good job started being able to save up money for the first time in my life, and not only surviving. I met Tenten and everything was turning around for me then the mess of the pandemic hit, I got laid off and depression really hit hard.

Now, you might be able to imagine how forward I was looking to starting over. The day before my flight is supposed to leave my wife's flight gets cancelled, and mine actually gets redirected. My flight being redirected was actually a godsend because I was able to skip a layover. I was supposed to land in Manilla then fly to Cebu. They redirected me straight to Cebu, which was amazing. My wife's flight being canceled the day before was very stressful, but we started immediately looking for a new flight for her.

The day finally arrives. I board the first leg of my flight with no issues and make it to Los Angeles a little late but not too terribly late. At Los Angeles the line to the flight was horrible. Due to other flight cancellations and problems the line to the check-in had not even started to move when my flight arrived even though the flight was due to take off in about an hour. As we were waiting in line we are informed that we have to quarantine at a list of approved hotels in Cebu and we have to have the room booked before we can check in. Now I had already had a room that I was previously told was approved. Sure enough it was not on the list. I asked about it and apparently that hotel was removed a few days before.

So, I hurry up and book a room at one of the approved hotels, and about 3 hours later we finally board the plane. I arrive in Cebu and wait for my turn for immigration. I get to the window about 2 hours after arriving. They want to deny my entry, saying my wife had to be on the flight with me. I pulled out the e-mails and correspondence I had with immigration and all related documents. Panic started to set in. Thankfully a supervisor came over and approved my visa. I went through the mandatory covid testing and after being at the airport for about 6 hours I finally get set up to go to the hotel since we had to wait on them to pick us up and were not allowed to take a taxi.

I arrived at the hotel with a few other flight passengers and the hotel had no clue they were a quarantine hotel. They had no information or idea what was going on. The only thing I knew was that I had to wait at least three days to find out about my test and then I could leave if it was negative. The hotel had Wi-Fi and I was able to let everyone know I made it safely and talk to my wife. While I was waiting for the results I started getting my wife a flight ASAP. Getting her a flight was a nightmare all flights from Singapore to Cebu kept getting cancelled or redirected and they recently decided that you have to quarantine where you land for at least 3 days. That means the flights I could get her went to Manilla and she would have to fly there, get tested, spend three to five days in quarantine then fly to Cebu and repeat. After four days I finally found a flight from Singapore to Cebu.

The flight cost about triple of the rest of her flights I had previously booked because it was flying out the next day. It was worth it to me though, I booked it and she was finally on her way to both of our relief. I now realized I had not gotten my test results yet. I started off by calling the number they gave me, and the you have to call "B", then "C", now "A" all over again. My wife arrives she has to be in another room because of the 3 day quarantine. I will be honest we stayed in the same room knowing that if either one of our tests came back positive we would both be staying until we were in the clear to leave.

At this point my wife had just arrived and I have already been at the hotel for a week. Cebu is now on full lockdown as well as our her hometown. We get a hold of her sister to help with making the arrangements in her barangay, district, to be able to travel out of Cebu. Her sister was a life saver. While Tenten and I were confined to the hotel room doing everything we could on the phone her sister was getting everything ready here. This included getting our test results, arranging transportation from the hotel to ferry and ferry to her parents house. Also we had to set up a quarantine at her parents house.

All in all after me only seeing the hotel room for 15 days we finally were in the clear to head to her parents house. We say goodbye to the friendly and very helpful hotel staff and hop in the taxi. We make our way to the ferry. At the ferry they officials there decided that all of our paperwork is not enough. Here we go again. We get a hold of her sister and she does everything she can and gets more approval from the barangay. the officials at the ferry still deny us. After twelve hours and a shift change later, the officials on the new shift said that we had everything we needed apologized and let us purchase out tickets for the next ferry. We rented a room to get a few hours sleep until the ferry was to depart.

We take the ferry trip and arrive, only to be met by more officials. We let my sister-in-law know we arrived and we get told our paperwork is not enough again. We get the run around and after a few hours my sister shows up talks to them shows them the actual paperwork not ust the photos that we have. They continue to argue but they cannot tell us what we need. They finally tell us that I needed to be in quarantine for 14 days since I came from the US, but my wife only had to quarantine for 5 days, before we would be allowed on the island. I prove that both of our covid tests came back negative and I was in quarantine for 15 days and her for 8 days.

Finally, we are allowed to leave after paying for a special transport to the house and now we have to begin another 2 week quarantine at the house, but that will be told in my next post.

Thank you for reading thus far. Take care and be safe.